Wall Street rises as materials and crypto stocks offset continued bond sell-off
Investing.com -- Bank of America clients were net buyers of U.S. equities for a sixth straight week last week, as the S&P 500 rose 3.6% in its best weekly performance since April. Inflows were driven by equity ETFs, which saw $4.1 billion in net buying for a seventh consecutive week of inflows, while single stocks saw $2.4 billion in outflows for a second straight week.
The buying was concentrated among hedge fund clients, who posted their largest weekly purchases in BofA’s data history going back to 2008, a "9th biggest/99th percentile week when normalized by S&P 500 mkt. cap," following a near-record buying week the week prior.
Institutional and retail clients, on the other hand, were net sellers for a second straight week. Clients sold single stocks across all size segments except small caps, though when ETFs were included, they were also buyers of large-cap stocks.
Corporate client buybacks picked up pace last week but remained below the historical average for the fourth week of earnings season when measured against market capitalization. Year-to-date, annualized buybacks are running slightly below full-year 2025 levels and below 2024 records, though still above the 2016-2023 range.
By sector, clients sold stocks in seven of 11 sectors, with Industrials seeing the largest outflows for a second consecutive week and Communication Services registering its biggest outflows since December. Tech stood out on the buy side, posting its second-biggest inflow week on record when normalized by the sector’s market cap within the S&P 500.
Consumer sectors also continued to draw interest, with Discretionary and Staples logging inflows for a sixth and third straight week, respectively.
Within ETFs, clients favored Value and Blend funds over Growth ETFs for the first time in five weeks, and bought across all size segments, including large-, mid-, small-cap and broad-market ETFs.
Sector-wise, ETF selling was seen in six of 11 sectors, led by outflows from Tech ETFs even as Tech single stocks saw near-record inflows. Industrials ETFs led sector inflows.
